Syncthing drive permission denied Windows 11

Here are some lines from the log…

2024-11-20 13:30:26 Adding folder “Share” (orkgx-evwco)
2024-11-20 13:30:26 No stored folder metadata for “orkgx-evwco”; recalculating
2024-11-20 13:30:26 Ready to synchronize “Share” (orkgx-evwco) (sendreceive)
2024-11-20 13:30:26 Scanner (folder “Share” (orkgx-evwco), item “System Volume Information”): scan: open \?\D:\System Volume Information: Access is denied.
2024-11-20 13:30:26 Completed initial scan of sendreceive folder “Share” (orkgx-evwco)

I added a drive with folder path D: and folder label Share. As suggested elsewhere I tried reinstalling for only the current user, but that didn’t fix anything. I also tried restarting my computer.

This exact setup used to work fine on Windows 10, but doesn’t now I am on Windows 11.

Hello @Wallby and welcome here!

“System Volume Information” is not a directory you should sync. I suggest you add it to .stignore.

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Thanks, I added that and it worked.

I also changed back from an only for current user installation to a system installation, for which I also had to add $RECYCLE.BIN to the .stignore file.

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Just a side note, but please keep in mind that file watching doesn’t work on drive root paths (e.g. C:, D:, etc.). In other words, Syncthing can only detect changes when running a periodic scan. This is a known issue with no simple workaround so far.

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I did a bit of research, and found an example of monitoring an entire drive on Windows working here… c# - FileSystemWatcher does not work with path set to drive root if on same drive as application - Stack Overflow Maybe Syncthing doesn’t use C#, but the point is that it is possible at all it seems, thus is this an issue because the Syncthing team hasn’t gotten to fixing it yet?

My understanding is that the filesystem watcher is part of the OS, not part of Syncthing. Syncthing just takes advantage of it.

Yes, this is a known bug. See https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/7944 for details.